Monday, October 20, 2008

Here we are, floating high above Lake Anne sometime in the 1960s, when it was the heart and soul of Reston (click to enlarge photo). Notice that the high-rise Heron House and other buildings around Washington Plaza look pretty much the same today (and the parking lot looks just as desolate). Also pretty much the same: the Crescent Apartments across North Shore Drive. Lake Anne Elementary (bottom left) looks too new to have a single wadded up piece of chewing gum under a single desk, though not far away you can see Hickory and Waterview Clusters and the open spot where the soccer fields on Fairway Drive would someday be built. There also appears to be a weird road that no longer exists snaking through what are now Mooring and Inlet Clusters. Wiehle Avenue hadn't been finished when this picture was taken, but you can also see the larger set of open fields north of Baron Cameron Avenue, where someday a school would be named for an astronaut who hadn't yet landed on the moon. Way off in the distance (upper right) are the gas stations and whatnot along Rt. 7, as well as yet another open field beyond Reston proper that would someday be home to some truly bitchin' McMansions.

The truly weird thing about this photo is that it appears to have snowed ever so slightly. Either that, or the Gulf Reston Co. routinely used Agent Orange-laced loam for deforestation purposes. It was the '60s, after all.